God now said, “Let us make human beings…” (1:26). The rabbinic sages read the two quite different accounts of human beginnings in this parashah as one continuous text. They took for granted that the male and female creations of Genesis 1 were the Adam and Eve of Genesis 2–3. However, the Rabbis were skeptical that men and women were created simultaneously in the divine image as stated in 1:26; they generally insisted that the first woman was formed later, from the first human being, as in Genesis 2:4–25. In Midrash B’reishit Rabbah 8.1, Rabbi Jeremiah ben Leazar suggested the compromise position that initially God created one entity with both male and female sexual characteristics. Only afterward, as described in Genesis 2:22, did God separate the female “side” to form the first woman from an essentially male entity. This midrash makes the powerful point that man and woman were initially created as a united being to which they revert when they become one flesh (Genesis 2:24) in marriage.
“In our image, after our likeness” (1:26). Parallel comments in B’reishit Rabbah 8. 9 and 22. 2 maintain the precedence of the man in human creation, while stressing the crucial role of marriage and procreation in human life: “In the past, Adam was created from the ground, and Eve from Adam; but henceforth [with the birth of offspring] it shall be in our image, after our likeness. Neither man without woman, nor woman without man, nor both of them without the Shechinah.” This invocation of the Shechinah—the indwelling nurturing aspect of the Divine, designated by a feminine noun—indicates that for the Rabbis, the female also shares in the divine image when she is joined to the male in a fruitful marriage.
God then blessed them (1:28). Continuing the strong connection between Creation and marriage, B’reishit Rabbah 8.13 records the tradition that God “took up a cup of blessing and blessed them.” Then it adds: “Rabbi Judah ben Rabbi Simon said: [The angels] Michael and Gabriel were Adam’s ‘best men.’ Rabbi Simlai said: We find that the Holy One blesses bridegrooms, adorns brides, visits the sick, buries the dead, and recites the blessing for mourners. God blesses bridegrooms, as it is written: God then blessed them; and adorns brides, as it is written: Now God יהוה built up the rib taken from the man into a woman (Genesis 2:22).”
Then God יהוה considered “It is not good that the man be alone—I will make him a helpmate” (2:18). B’reishit Rabbah 17.2 teaches: “A man without a wife lives without good, without help, without joy, without blessing, and without atonement.…Some even say he falls short of the divine image, since immediately following For human beings were made in the image of God (Genesis 9:6) it is written, As for you, be fruitful and multiply (9:7).” For the Rabbis, humankind is like God in its ability to create human beings, yet reproduction requires both females and males. According to BT Y’vamot 63a, women also help men in pragmatic ways; there the prophet Elijah meets Rabbi Yosi and asks him rhetorically: “If a man brings in wheat, does he chew on the wheat? If flax, does he put on the flax? [No, he must wait until his wife sees to the processing of the wheat into bread, and of the flax into clothing!] Does she not, then, bring light to his eyes and put him on his feet?”
and the man said, “This time— / bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh!” (2:23). Prompted by This time, several rabbinic passages mention a previous time—a “first Eve,” who fled from Adam and was replaced with a second female creation (B’reishit Rabbah 17.7, 18.4, 22. 7). This legend was later combined with ancient folk traditions about the night spirit Lilith. In the Alphabet of Ben Sira (possibly 8th century C. E.), Lilith’s rebelliousness is attributed to her equal creation with Adam. Refusing to be subservient in sexual intercourse or in any other way, she became a demon rather than endure Adam’s domination. Jewish folklore attributed nocturnal emissions to Lilith, who was said to set upon sleeping men. She was also blamed for maternal deaths in childbirth and for infant mortality. One popular remedy was amulets bearing the names of angels. Lilith is further demonized in Jewish mystical traditions where she and her satanic husband Samael become the evil counterparts of Adam and Eve. (On Lilith, see further Judith R. Baskin, Midrashic Women, 2002, pp. 58–60.)
And to the woman, [God] said (3:16). Some Rabbis blame Eve for the expulsion from the Garden of Eden and its consequences. While Adam was punished for his participation in divine disobedience, none of the pronouncements against him in Genesis 3:17–19 apply only to males. But Eve, and through her all women, received additional gender-specific punishments—and rabbinic literature discusses them frequently. The inventory found in Avot D’Rabbi Nathan B 42 includes: menstruation, “when she is driven from her house and banned from her husband”; childbirth; nursing her children; and being subject to her husband’s authority and his jealousy. Moreover, she ages quickly and ceases to give birth, while “men never cease being able to beget children.” Also, a woman stays indoors; and when she goes out, her head must be covered like a mourner: “That is why women precede the funeral bier, saying, ‘We have brought death upon all the inhabitants of the world.’” Such harsh views permeate rabbinic commentary on Eve’s creation and her role in the Garden of Eden, and they had a long and pernicious afterlife in shaping Jewish and Christian views of women.
—Judith R. Baskin